KEY POINTS:
Further searches for a pilot who went missing 10 years ago are possible, according to the rescue pilot who initiated a police Search and Rescue (SAR) exercise in South Canterbury at the weekend.
Darryl Sherwin of Auckland's Westpac rescue helicopter, who persuaded police to renew the search for North Otago pilot Ryan Moynihan in the Mt Peel Forest area, said yesterday that he wouldn't rule out a private search.
Mr Moynihan, 23, went missing on Saturday November 8, 1997. He had delivered whitebait to an airfield at West Melton, southwest of Christchurch, and was returning to the Waiatoto River southwest of Haast.
Extensive searching along the anticipated flight path of his 1955 Cessna 180 plane failed to find any trace of it.
More than 100 volunteers, with police and Air Force staff, made an unsuccessful search for Mr Moynihan and his plane at the weekend as part of an annual police SAR exercise.
Mr Sherwin, who plotted radar co-ordinates that helped find multimillionaire Michael Erceg's crashed helicopter near Raglan in 2005, told NZPA he was still convinced the Mt Peel Forest held the answer to Mr Moynihan's disappearance.
He said he and Mr Moynihan's father, Michael, would wait to assess data from the police exercise before making any decisions on a further search.
He said he had been surprised at the rugged, impenetrable country in the Mt Peel area, which had made searching extremely arduous.
"We still believe he's in there, but you could put 1000 searchers in there shoulder-to-shoulder and still not get into some areas, it's so rugged."
Mr Sherwin said the weekend search had been a "good learning experience" and he praised the volunteers who turned out.
"As a rescue pilot I've flown over that sort of terrain, but it's not until you get on the ground that you realise just how bad it is. It's mongrel country."
Mr Sherwin said he was interested in hearing from anyone in the South Canterbury, Mt Peel or Geraldine area who might have taken photographs on the day Ryan Moynihan went missing.
He said this would help him confirm weather conditions at the time, which he suspected had closed in around Mt Peel Forest.
- NZPA
